First Impressions: Sega gives gamers some more luvin'
A tennis game? Yuck! Oh, wait, Sega’s making it? Sweet! I don’t think anyone expected Hitmaker’s arcade-to-Dreamcast conversion of Virtua Tennis to be such a hit last year. Its release was showered by critically acclaiming reviews from just about every gaming publication, and for good reason. Virtua Tennis was exactly what a tennis game should be, simple, addicting, and extremely fun; it’s like pong on steroids. The game was so successful in fact, that Sega has decided to make the game a permanent part of its Sega Sports line-up, with yearly updates and all. Dropping the Virtua and adding a 2K2 behind it, Sega Tennis 2K2 is sure to be a worthy sequel and will soon be an excellent sports franchise.
Ok, how many here have actually sat down and watched a tennis match on TV? Or live for that matter? Needless to say, it’s not the most exciting sport out there, although I hear it’s Akash’s favorite. Now take that boring old sport, add a little bit of Sega’s gaming magic, and voila, one of the funnest games out there. The basics from Virtua Tennis seem to be making their way to the sequel. First, the simple controls, you control your character with the analog stick (duh), and you are given two basic swings, the stroke, and the lob. Simple, eh? Serving is pretty basic also, hit the button, bar goes up, hit the button again, it doesn’t exactly take a rocket scientist to figure out. The analog sticks also serves as the line between where you hit the ball from, and where the ball lands. For example, if you hold the stick up, the ball will go towards the base line, if you hold back, the ball will barely go over the net, and left and right positioning is also available for further ball control.
Also returning are the big name tennis stars, and this time we are getting the women players (whoo hoo!), this was a big complaint in the first one. Thankfully for Sega, they have secured the rights to feature two of tennis’s biggest young stars, the William sisters, Venus and Serena (who will also be on the cover). Other notable women include Lindsay Davenport, Mary Pierce, and Arantxa Sanchez-Vicario. What?! Where are the two biggest women tennis stars, Martina Hingis and Anna Kournakova (man she’s hot)? The same goes for the men’s draw, there are a few big star names returning, but where are Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi, the two biggest tennis stars in the world at? Wow, I think I know too much about tennis, it’s kind of scary. Anyway, I guess there’s always next year’s version for the big time stars.
Visually, Sega Tennis 2K2 is looking as if it will have a few subtle differences from Virtua Tennis. Most notable are the characters themselves, they look much smoother and seem to contain more textures, especially in the faces. The players will express a broader range of emotions through facial animation than in the first. But probably the biggest change that Sega Tennis 2K2 is set to have, is the many new options. With it now getting the full-fledged Sega Sports treatment, the game is set to include many more options than the first. There will be a World Circuit Mode, where you can play single matches, doubles, and also mixed doubles match ups. Also making an appearance will be the create-a-player feature. This feature, which has now become standard in the videogame sports world, will give you many different ways to make your own unique player, which includes setting their specific skills and abilities, plus customizing the characters face and clothing. At this point all the details have yet to be released on the game, but so far it looks as if it’s going easily beat out Virtua Tennis in terms of its options. And I’m willing to bet there will be many more new play modes.
One of the coolest features announced for Sega Tennis was the inclusion of online play. This feature, which was set to let you battle real people all around the world, would have definitely up the already amazing replay value. But unfortunately the online components have been scraped. Sega’s reason is that a tennis game requires perfect timing and the slightest lag would upset the play mechanics. This is a very understandable reason, but it’s still a major letdown to us Sega Tennis fans who have been anticipating this great feature. Maybe one day when the majority of people have broadband (get with the program people) the online components will see the light of day once again.
